I love rockets. My Bachelor’s degree is in Aerospace Engineering and I’ve been interested in rockets since I was a kid. My dad worked on the main engines for the Saturn V rocket when he worked at Pratt &amp; Whitney as a chemist, I’ve designed and manufactured parts for the space program as an engineer, and my senior project in college was designing a two-state-to-orbit space vehicle. I’ve found that all kids seem to have some interest in rockets and I use that as a great end-of-the-year project in my physics class.

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I found a great resource from NASA – The Rockets Educator Guide – that includes lesson plans and activity ideas. NASA’s site is a great resource for this type of project. This guide has some great activities like rockets using film canisters, baking soda, and vinegar, paper rockets, altitude trackers and more. There is even a part on the history of rockets.

This week, I was able to show one class the live launch of the Shuttle Endeavor on NASA TV, which is currently showing video of a space walk. I also use the video from Rush’s “Countdown” song.

I start the project with a video of a shuttle launch and Rush’s Countdown song (written after they viewed a shuttle launch in the 80’s). Then the students do a webquest on NASA’s site that explains the science of rockets. We also discuss rockets and space flight and then start linking the topics we’ve done in the past to this project. I also bring in the chemistry behind solid rocket engines.

The students then get model rocket kits and build the model rockets. The rocket kits are challenging and call for the students to read and understand the directions and figure a few things out for them selves. They have to perform a stability test on the rockets and then calculate the predicted altitude. When we launch the rockets, we use altitude trackers and some trigonometry to find the actual altitude and compare it to the calculated altitude. We then talk about what could have caused the discrepancies.

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Meet the DEN

Community Calendar: March 2015

Take a look at just some of the great stuff going on this month at Discovery Education. We invite you to join us.
Download the .pdf version. It has links for you to learn more about what’s happening each day.